We purposely did not have anything planned for our first day, but I had an idea. There is a trail in the Nelder campground that takes you to see a few Sequoias. It is a short drive from the cabin (20 minutes) along a well maintained forest service road, which means driving through some dense forest, the kind you usually only see on a hike. That made the drive more fun. As we drove, we noticed the clouds darkening in the direction we were traveling, and as we got higher up the mountain, we noticed the air temperature dropping. We had left a warm 78 degrees at the cabin, and dressed as such, but by the time we reached Nelder campground, we had experienced a few splats of rain on the windshield, and a temperature drop to 62 degrees.
I had concerns that everyone would be cold, but they all had more clothes than I did so those concerns were small compared to the concerns I had for myself. I was wearing light hiking shorts and a breathable sports shirt. When we arrived at the campground/trailhead and got out of the car, we realized it was cool, but not cold, maybe this would turn out ok.
We first walked through an interpretive area about the lumber industry in the area in the past. There were a few massive Sequoia stumps (one named Big Ed) that had been felled by lumberjacks. It was a little sad to see these mighty stumps and imagine the trees that had met their end at the hand of man, but those were very different times, and that was normal.
We walked two trails, first the Chimney Tree trail and then the Bull Buck loop. Along the hike, occasionally we would be hit with a few drops of rain, and now and then we would hear the roll of thunder in the distance. None of this made us uncomfortable and so mother nature’s additions to our hike just added to the experience and made it more interesting.
The Chimney Tree is a Sequoia that has been hollowed out by fire, but is still alive. You can enter the base and look up through the inside of the tree and see the sky! How this tree remains alive is a testament to the heartiness of Sequoias.
The trail then took us to a creek. Dylan was very excited because he saw “gold” sparkling in the water and wanted to get some. I have to back up a little hear to provide some context. GOLD has been the biggest thing on Dylan’s mind related to this trip. He knows we are in gold country, and on Wednesday we will be taking a train ride and the boys will learn how to and then get to pan for gold. Needless to say he has gold on the brain.
We shimmied down to the waters edge and grabbed some of the shiny stuff we saw. Although there was a lot of shiny stuff in the water, it was very fine and grabbing it was tough so we didn’t end up with very much. That was ok with me cause I had doubts (serious doubts) that what we were grabbing had any value, but Dylan was convinced so I went along with it ;-).
Next we came to the Bull Buck Loop and immediately were greeted with the trail’s namesake. Wow! The picture at the top of this post with Aidan standing in front is Bull Buck. He is a massive specimen of a tree… here are his stats:
The hike was nice and mostly flat… a nice easy start to our vacation.
Nelder Grove Hike
Distance Hiked: 2.47 miles
Elevation Change: 307 ft.